But one former Angel has recently revealed to Time's Motto that she was told she had to slim down before the show.

"My last two Victoria's Secret shows, I was told I had to lose weight," Erin Heatherton said to Motto. "I look back like, 'Really?'"

"I was really depressed because I was working so hard and I felt like my body was resisting me," she said. "And I got to a point where one night I got home from a workout and I remember staring at my food and thinking maybe I should just not eat."

"The breakdown to breakthrough moment in my life has allowed me to become the truest version of myself. In my moment of 'failure,' I stood in the face of adversity," she wrote alongside a photo. "I was struggling with my body image and the pressures to fulfill the demands of perfectionism upon me. I am not perfect."

Victoria's Secret places notoriously strict limitations upon the Angels: prospective models must be 5-foot-9 with desired measurements around 34''-24''-34''.

"When I would gain weight and I had a big Victoria's Secret shoot, say they wanted me to shoot the cover of the swimsuit issue, I would just make my hair bigger to make my booty look smaller," she said to People in September.

But underneath the humor, there's an underlying sense of tremendous pressure.

Heatherton appears to be speaking to that.

"I realized I couldn't go out into the world—parading my body and myself in front of all these women who look up to me—and tell them that this is easy and simple and everyone can do this," she said to Motto.

Victoria's Secret did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.